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2018/04/08

The importance of mastering the Interaction concept

The most common excuse used in the corporate world is "I didn't have time". Simply understanding how Interactions work in Simple CRM is not enough; it is essential to manage your time correctly.

Learning to manage time is learned. To do this, we strongly encourage you to read the Simple CRM manual, chapter "Business Process Optimization". In addition, you can also watch a video that will teach you the techniques to make the phrase "I didn't have time" disappear at:

What is an Interaction?

An Interaction makes it possible to manage all business processes: a sale, a purchase, project implementation stages, etc.

Interactions are visible in two forms: in calendar form (for better visibility of availability over time) and in list form (for better visibility of the information that constitutes the interaction and faster processing).

Interactions are the heart of your activity since it is through them that you manage your time and, de facto, your customer and supplier relations.

FOCUS ON INTERACTION STATES

An interaction can have 3 states:
OPEN: It's planned but you haven't started working on it yet. You are at a standstill, so the fire is RED.
IN PROGRESS: You have started working on it. Courage, it will soon be over, you go towards the light (the light that is YELLOW).
FINISH: You have finished this Interaction. The fire is GREEN, you can continue your journey, move on.

Differences between an appointment and a task

Time consists of two Interaction families: tasks and appointments.

A task is an Interaction not frozen in time. For example, you have to proofread a document this week, with Thursday as the deadline. A task, therefore, has a start date (which is the time from which you can perform this Interaction and a deadline which is the deadline by which this Interaction must be fully performed).

An appointment is an action frozen in time, which begins at a specific time and ends at a specific time. To define the end time, we, therefore, choose a duration for this appointment.

For example, you have an appointment with Mr. Bertrand to present Product X to him on Wednesday from 14:00 to 15:30.

To distinguish a task from an appointment, simply check the TASK box in the Interaction :

It is essential to make this distinction properly. Indeed, if you define all your tasks as appointments when you open your calendar, it will be full! So, if a customer has an urgent request when you open your calendar, it will seem full. Not being able to propose him an appointment quickly, this customer will go to see a competitor. In short: air your calendar correctly by separating tasks and appointments correctly.

Additional information available in the video "I didn't have time".

An interaction evolves over time

Here is the classic error that new users of Simple CRM comment. Phoning a potential customer, they create an Interaction, Status: IN PROGRESS, Type: Sales - 01 Making contact. So far, so good. The potential customer, says he is interested but is currently overwhelmed and asks to be contacted again in three months. Beginners then tend to move the Interaction to Status: FINISH, then create a new Interaction in order to re-contact this potential customer in 3 months.

Error! The idea is to work as little as possible. Then, after this return, click on the HORODATAGE button and write "Potential customer interested but overwhelmed. He asked to be contacted again in 3 months." and change the Interaction date so that it appears in your Simple CRM calendar in 3 months.

Remember that an Interaction is something that evolves over time, up to a conclusion that is either positive (Sale won, Receipt of Positive Delivery, Support Ticket resolved, etc...) or negative (Sale lost, Receipt of Negative Delivery, etc...) and that once this state is reached, underlies de facto the change of the state of the Interaction to TERMINATE.

FOCUS: APPOINTMENT REMINDER VIA HAPPI
When you have an appointment, select the media: APPOINTMENT REMINDER VIA HAPPI. Thus your interlocutor will receive two reminders of appointment: one day before and another, the day of the appointment. Be careful, though! If after the appointment you write in the memo field "Interested customer, make a quote before Thursday", check the box TACHE and place the task tomorrow and well your customer will receive again two reminders for this appointment! Remember, therefore, to change the media to avoid this concern.

Thanks to the time-stamped notes, even if you resume an Interaction 6 months later, you find all the relational history, which allows you to have a much more effective dialogue.

Tip: to distinguish your own notes from a customer return, place the return of your customer in quotation marks (summary of the exchange by phone or extract of the important elements of an e-mail).

FOCUS UPDATE DATE :
The update date is by default the start date of the interaction.

This date is automatically changed in the following cases:
You switch the interaction type to "Purchase - 6 - Reception".
You switch the interaction type to "Delivery - 7 - Positive Reception".
You change the interaction type to "Project - 8 - Final Delivery".
You change the interaction type to "Support - 5 - Confirmation PV".
You switch the interaction type to "Sell - 6 - Win"

For example, this is where you find the moment when a Sales Interaction has been switched to WON SALE. It is this date that actually enables the reports to be produced. Detailed information at http://www.simple-crm-support.com/2016/01/dans-les-rapports-lorsque-je-precise.html

Assign the right types of Interaction to users?
Since Interactions can handle everything, this same flexibility can disrupt users! It is true that for a salesperson, seeing interaction types such as purchase, delivery or administrative has no interest.

In order to facilitate the adoption of Simple CRM by your users, you must, therefore, configure for each user the types of Interaction he will use.

For example in the image below, this sales representative only sees Sales, Private and E-mail Interactions:

Attention: always leave, whatever the profile of the user, the types PRIVE and E-MAIL. Private allows you to model the holidays or a meeting at the dentist and e-mail corresponds to the emails that you transfer in the software (see detailed explanation on http://www.simple-crm-support.com/2015/04/comment-gerer-les-emails-entrants-et.html).
Save time with interaction templates, email templates and speech recognition

To save a maximum of time, you can ask Simple CRM (click for more explanations) :
Enter Interactions for you
Write your emails
Write what you dictate in the note field
Manage recurring interactions (automatic interaction creation)

Good customer follow-up: Tuesday and Thursday reminders

Extract from page 42 of the Simple CRM manual available at: http://crm-pour-pme.fr/pdf/DocumentationSimpleCRMv2_0.pdf

"Many companies neglect the importance of customer care. A study conducted in 2006 published by axRavery (2006) shows that 70% of companies are ignoring/following 50% of leads badly! Yet it is obvious, a customer so the file is well followed, is a customer who feels the quality of your company, it is a customer who is, therefore, much more inclined to sign purchase orders or contracts.
It is therefore essential to remind your clients twice a week during negotiations.
I advise you to make your reminders every Tuesday and Thursday morning.
Why this choice? On Monday, your contacts are drowned by the e-mails of the w-end, the meetings at the beginning of the week, the organization of their planning, etc.. They will not be able to give your application the attention it deserves.
Tuesday morning is therefore a perfect choice for a first friendly relaunch.
Wednesday: too close to Tuesday for a second reminder.
Thursday is therefore the perfect day for the second reminder since on Friday, your interlocutors will already have their minds partly on the weekend.
I advise you to send your reminders by e-mail, based on a defined scenario. Indeed, as you know, Simple CRM writes your emails for you (see point 3.10). With this technology, it shouldn't take you more than 20 minutes to restart all your current business!
To do this, define an accompanying scenario, based on the usual duration of the delay.

For more info.:

SEE THE EXPLANATIONS OF THE FAQ INTERACTION ON: http://www.simple-crm-support.com/search/label/Interaction

Frequently asked support questions (click for more explanations) :

How to see the interactions of other users?
When I consult a contact or a company, I do not see the interactions finished
Can I change the types of interactions?
In reports, when I specify a range of dates, some interactions do not appear
How to create interaction types?